The ability to obtain and analyze pertinent information from large databases is a critical element in understanding what is happening in a business. Businesses are collecting more and more data as their operations increase in size and complexity. Identifying and locating relevant data in these voluminous databases continues to be a significant challenge that is made substantially more complex and difficult as the sizes and complexities of the databases have grown. This process, as well as the process of analyzing and visualizing the relevant data, are computationally and time intensive.
Data analysis or analytics is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, modeling and presenting the data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making. As part of this process it is often useful to take what is referred to as a “snapshot” of a data presentation. The term was coined as an analogy to the same term as used in photography, and like its photographic counterpart, a data snapshot is a static representation of certain elements at the particular point in time and state that the snapshot was taken. Such elements as are included in a data snapshot may include the results of applying various queries or other processing of the underlying data.
While database snapshots and the techniques therefor are known to those skilled in the database art, they currently have several limitations. Snapshots are static and reflect the data and/or the visualization of the data at a particular state and point in time. Snapshots can be created, stored, and called upon as needed, but when called upon, the snapshots produce only the same data or data display that was originally captured. Snapshots cannot readily be altered or re-configured as desired, except for adding text and graphics to help understand the data and reports that have been captured, but not for changing the data or the reports. Additionally, there are often specific configuration requirements, pre-conditions, and pre-configurations which must met before a snapshot can be taken. These and other limitations and restrictions are known to those skilled in the database art.